Raspberry Pie
by Aiyta
Summary: Gertie decides it's time to step their game up, and Phil ends up caving. Sequel to "Lady Eleanor"


**Note: **Conversation I imagine Gertie and Phil having after Helga comes to visit in my fic "Lady Eleanor" - you don't _need _to read that one first, but you totally should anyway :)

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Gertie Shortman eyed her newly baked dessert with pride as she slid the large raspberry pie onto the kitchen countertop to cool. Dusting her hands on her apron, she wondered just how much of a fuss her husband would make about the 'forbidden fruit' this time around. Funnily enough, she was getting rather tired of creating endless raspberry flavoured dishes, in fact, using raspberries in just about everything hadn't even been her idea in the first place.

Eyes gleaming with pure determination, as they had been known to do over the years, considering her particularly head strong nature – she headed for the living room where she knew Phil would be 'resting his eyes' before bed.

"Phil." she began decisively, rounding the corner to set eyes upon the man she had loved since as long as she could remember, "You need to give the boy more hints."

Phillip Shortman's eyes flashed open in an awful hurry and a panicked look crossed his features, "No!" he objected, a little wary of the look in his wife's eyes, knowing full well she _would _get what she wanted, just like usual, if he was to show the slightest sign of weakness.

Gertie placed her hands on her hips and frowned down at him in his position on the couch, something which instantly reminded Phil of his childhood, "Raspberries are gettin' old, Chin Boy." she insisted.

"Raspberries are all he's going to get!" he shot back at his frustrated wife, despite the fact that he felt like he was losing already, something which he had become rather accustomed to over the past seventy eight years.

Gertie shook her head at this, "Raspberries don't make sense to him!" she instantly reminded him.

"Just my darn luck, too..." the old man mused, "the boy questions _everything _except for why I tell him not to eat raspberries."

Gertie sank into the lounge chair beside him, "Oh, but I thought you were a wily old coot, Chin Boy!" she teased.

Phil simply glared at her in response, "I am as wily as I've always been, Pookie." he assured her haughtily, "But we have to be _subtle _with the boy."

"Subtle is for the masses!" Gertie cried out, possibly a little _too_ loudly because a distinct '_be quiet crazy lazy!_' was heard from Oskar Kokoshka's room upstairs, "_We_ do things differently around here."

"No, Pookie." Phil said, rolling his eyes dramatically, "_You_ do things differently around here."

His wife didn't miss a beat, simply responding, "And don't you forget it!" in her most confident and assured tone.

Phil sighed, winning an argument against this woman had always proven darn near impossible and he was almost certain he was about to lose this one, "It's just not the right th-"

"Don't you get started on what the _right thing to do _is!" Gertie immediately shot back, cutting him off before he could even finish the sentence, "You know full and well I _hate _it!"

Phil chuckled happily to himself beside her, "What was that Pookie, you hate it?" he checked teasingly.

"Hate it!" she assured him quickly, failing to hide the silly smile on her face.

Her husband simply shrugged at this, "Guess that's why you put so many _raspberries _in my food." he added swiftly.

"It's not _working_!" she instantly reminded him, drawing their attentions back onto the initial subject of concern and away from the beginning of yet another one of their frequent '_oh I guess you must hate me' _games that had begun way back when they first got together as kids.

Phil folded his arms across his chest, "Fine, you win." he relented, muttering a quick, "like always" underneath his breath.

Gertie raised an inquisitive, and knowing, eyebrow at him, "What was that, General?"

"Nothing." he assured her quickly, although he certainly wasn't foolish enough to think she hadn't heard, "What's the game plan then, you crazy old bird?"

His wife looked him up and down thoughtfully, even scrunching her face in concentration at one point, before delivering her sure to be unpopular 'game plan', "Let me call you Chin Boy."

"No!" Phil cried out, jumping from the couch, "Have you finally _truly_ lost your marbles, Pookie? That'll smack the boy in the face like... like Helga in a bad mood!"

Gertie rolled her eyes at the old man, mostly for suggesting that Eleanor would ever even come close to _thinking _about placing a hand on their grandson in such a manner (even if he was joking), after all, Gertie was rather adept in her knowledge of little girls like dear Eleanor, or should she say, her future granddaughter.

"Nuh uh, no arguments, _Chin Boy_!" Gertie stated firmly, as lifted herself from the couch and wandered away toward their bedroom, "Oh hah, Chin Boy, I have _missed _that one..." she chuckled to herself happily as she went.

Phil looked upward, in the general direction of his grandsons attic bedroom, "Oh Arnold, why didn't you _think_ about the raspberries, boy!" he lamented as he meandered into the kitchen, in the direction of the lovely smell that had just hit his nose, "Raspberry pie, eh?" he grinned as he spotted the bright red dessert on the bench, "Don't mind if I do..."

Cutting himself a hearty slide of pie, that was sure to bring him great troubles in the near future, Phil absentmindedly stroked his strange looking chin and muttered happily to himself, "_Chin Boy_... I've missed that one too."


End file.
